gameshowhost:hardinparamedic: simplicimus: hardinparamedic: simplicimus: gameshowhost: Welcome to my Not Collecting Stamps club! We don't collect stamps here, so let's get together and talk about not collecting stamps.

I don't have a collection of commemorative stamps from the 70's to the present day.

That's a shame. I hear that NASA had some really nice stamps in the 1970s.

That was a funny read. "Additional verification needed". Like there's a USPS center on the moon to cancel the stamps.

If you want a series of good laughs, read up on the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs. Those guys got away with a LOT in those days.

: /

Guys, please stay on topic.

While drinking at a strip club with some Navy pilots wearing their flightsuits, (the strippers were swarming us) one of the boys pulled a penny from his pocket. These girls were D-U-M-B dumb, and believed every word of BS about these dudes in clearly-marked Navy flightsuits being astronauts who brought the penny back from the Moon. While not a stamp, that routine (complete with, "NO you can't give her the *MOON* penny, are you crazy???" and "but she's SPECIAL, I want her to have it!") got them perhaps more tang than real astronauts. Quite the vaudeville act.

CatholicBaptistChristianMethodist / WesleyanLutheranPresbyterianProtestantPentecostal/CharismaticEpiscopalian/AnglicanMormon / Latter-Day SaintsThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsCongregational/United Church of ChristJehovah's WitnessAssemblies of GodEvangelicalChurch of GodSeventh-Day AdventistOrthodox (Eastern)Holiness/HolyChurch of the NazareneDisciples of ChristChurch of the BrethrenMennoniteReformed/Dutch ReformApostolic/New ApostolicQuakerChristian ScienceChristian ReformIndependent Christian ChurchFoursquare GospelFundamentalistBorn AgainSalvation Army

Incorrect. Colloquialism and the changing nature of language have removed the notion of those things as religious. The word religion can accurately be applied to any binding or obligatory practice. If you do not like this,that is not my problem, but you are rejecting objective fact.

The fact that people get their panties in a twist over this fact is further proof that they revere their status as atheists, and therefore are religious.

Now you're just declaring things. Your criteria seems to be that everything you say is a religion is a religion, while other things with indistinguishably similar properties aren't religions.

It all sounds remarkably like bullshiat.

With regards to "binding or obligatory practice," that would mean that paying your taxes is a religion. In fact, anything with real negative consequences for noncompliance would be a religion. If a mugger pulls a gun on you and demands your wallet, giving wallets to muggers is a religion.

Egoy3k:ciberido: It was formed in the aftermath of Elevatorgate because there was a sense that too many vocal atheists were misogynistic, racist, or homophobic and that the "face" or "voice" of modern atheism was too white/male/heterosexual.

Not surprisingly, those atheists who weren't big fans of feminism to begin with don't much care for "Atheism+."

I'm a fan of feminism and I think that 'elevatorgate' is the stupidest thing ever. As such I'm not a huge fan of Atheism+ but that doesn't mean I hate women.

/The misogynist backlash for 'elevatorgate' was shameful but that doesn't mean that the actual incident wasn't stupid and pretty harmless.

"Elevatorgate" was the backlash. More specifically, it was the insistence by prominent atheist figures that the misogynist backlash the woman received for speaking out was not really misogynist, or at least not as bad as religious misogyny so she needed to get over it.

The incident in which Rebecca Watson was propositioned by a man in an elevator prompted an initial comment from her which amounted to "don't do that, it's creepy". If it had stopped there, there would be no controversy.

s2s2s2:Epicedion: You're equivocating the literal and metaphorical meanings of the word "deity" here. When you say the more common "his god is money" you don't literally mean that the person worships money as a literal god. What you mean is that the person holds money in as high regard as someone would a god.

Addressing your other points, the Sierra Club gathers, organizes, and proselytizes. So does your local union. Or HOA. None of these are religions.

I know I am equivocating, because the only real difference is in interpretation. If I believe that a relationship with god is of utmost importance, and there is no god, it's not actually different than believing I can save the world from catastrophic climate change.

Religion is practice. Religion is not belief. I believe in some sort of higher intelligence to the universe(kinda like what Einstein said), but I am not at all religious.

The practice of religion is tied to the beliefs of the members. If there doesn't have to be a god in the religion, then there's really nothing separating the meanings of "religion" and "club."

The same sense applies when you use the word "cult" instead of "religion" -- if you call both the Suicide Pact of the Holy Comet and Christianity "cults" you're really watering down what it means to be a "cult."

But this is all largely pedantic. If religion's only response to atheist get-togethers is to say "but but but that makes you a church and so atheism is just a religion too!" it doesn't speak highly of what the religious think of religion, as if it's some standard to be lowered to.

ciberido:log_jammin: mamoru: How so? And, I really do mean that as an honest question. I'm just an (apathetic agnostic) atheist, so don't really know much about all of these "official" factions and movements and such. What are the atheism+ people and what makes them assholes?

long story short, you're either with them or you're a misogynist.

As opposed to say, the New Atheists, where you're either with them or you're a drooling moron.

How else would you describe people who believe everything in the Bible really happened?

Prophet of Loss:But you do believe in something jackass, you believe that the universe, life, and everything is a accident.

Others believe differently.

This is relevant how? Also, if you're referencing the atheists who discount the biblical farce of creation, you probably aren't processing that whole scientific method thing correctly and would likely need to go develop your own conclusions based on personal research and reflection..

I get that theists prefer to have someone tell them what to believe, but you really should think about engaging your critical faculties...

Just because you believe in sentient purple spigots invading Saturn doesn't make it true.

Prophet of Loss:But you do believe in something jackass, you believe that the universe, life, and everything is a accident.

You do realize that atheism is generally about not anthropomorphising statistical and natural forces, right? And that something being an "accident" requires that one anthropomorphize statistical and natural forces?

I'm actually rooting for trolling here because if you're actually mouthing off so loudly with a declaration that is essentially "hey, look at how stupid I am over here and how I fail to understand the basic definitions of words and shiat" then I'm going to actually have to feel kind of sad for how terrible you are and how much your mental deficiencies must make your life suck.

LonMead:omeganuepsilon: It's not like it's convoluted, "There are a lot of people who believe in a lot of silly things. I hope you don't fall in line with that." is hardly indoctrination. You sort of need a doctrine to do that.

Such as Atheism.

Responding to someone calling you "silly" by demonstrating that you don't understand the difference between someone pointing out that your extraordinary claim has no proof and them making an extraordinary claim themselves... isn't really a counter-argument so much as pointing out that they should have gone with "stupid" instead of "silly".

So, we're gonna wind up with the Atheist Church, the Reformed Atheist Church, The Free-Will Atheists, the Mission Atheists, the Southern Atheists, the Seventh Day Atheists, Greek Orthodox Atheists, the First Church of Atheism-Scientist, the Atheist Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Martinez of Latter-Day Atheist, and Episcopalians. Where will it all end?

It's getting so you can't believe in God in peace around here anymore.

Headline in the form of a question, so the answer is as always the exact opposite of what is being implied, e.g. in this case atheist churches can, in fact, last.

On a more serious and less meme-y note, there are already plenty of atheist social clubs based around community-building, arbitrarily fabricated ritual, and tongue-in-cheek references to theist religions. And some of the freemason lodges are going on two or three centuries old now... so, historically, the answer is also yes.

"Atheist" is an adjective describing an organisation or philosophy, not a noun naming a specific philosophy in itself.

There are plenty of atheist organizations and philosophies around, 99% of logic-based philosophy is by definition atheist (including, interestingly, most religious philosophy, since the entire point there is to prove that the morality of x religion is a basic law of the universe whether you believe in that religion or not). Several religions, interestingly, are even atheist, and not just the entertaining modern ones like the Jedi or the Subgenius guys... Taoism, a religion four centuries older than Christianity, has a number of schools that are atheist.

So, no, atheists don't "believe in nothing" necessarily, they just believe in a set of things that don't include a god or gods. Which, in complete and utter honesty as an atheist myself, I have to admit frequently still includes frivolous bullshiat of both the supernatural and pseudoscientific variety. Social darwinism, telepathy, animism, homeopathy, etc... plenty of atheists in the ranks of the followers of all sorts of dumbass woo.

gameshowhost:hardinparamedic: simplicimus: hardinparamedic: simplicimus: gameshowhost: Welcome to my Not Collecting Stamps club! We don't collect stamps here, so let's get together and talk about not collecting stamps.

I don't have a collection of commemorative stamps from the 70's to the present day.

That's a shame. I hear that NASA had some really nice stamps in the 1970s.

That was a funny read. "Additional verification needed". Like there's a USPS center on the moon to cancel the stamps.

If you want a series of good laughs, read up on the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs. Those guys got away with a LOT in those days.

: /

Guys, please stay on topic.

Hey, it is on topic. The crew of Apollo 8 were very religious.

They also weren't dicks.

"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas - and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."